More than a century ago, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius
warned that burning oil and coal could lead to an atmospheric
buildup of carbon dioxide that would eventually warm the planet. It
was a radical idea back in those horse-and-buggy days.

Most experts now believe that to be true, and this week a group
of nations took an important if modest step in addressing the
concern that motor vehicles, factories, and other development are
changing Earth's climate in ways that could be dangerous.

The Kyoto Protocol, which goes into effect Wednesday, commits 35
industrialized countries to reducing by 2012 their emissions of six
"greenhouse gases" that trap heat in the earth's atmosphere -
principally carbon dioxide - by 5 percent less than 1990 levels.

Seven years in the making and ratified by 141 countries, the
agreement - formulated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 - has been
controversial from the start. Advocates see it as a baby step along
the necessary road to reducing human impact on climate before the
oceans rise and prairie songbirds emigrate to the Arctic. Of
opponents who accept the notion of global warming at all, some say
the accord is based on sketchy science and in any case would damage
the economic growth most people demand.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, scientists have
established, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 has increased 35
percent. While debates have raged over the extent and causes, and
even the reality, of global warming, the evidence of climate change
keeps mounting. This has included record annual temperature levels,
retreating glaciers, shrinking Arctic ice, and shifting global
rainfall patterns.

Last week, NASA said a combination of weather conditions and
greenhouse gases could make this year the warmest on record. Earlier
this month, experts at a government-sponsored conference in England
reported "greater clarity and reduced uncertainty about the impacts
of climate change."

Countries will use a variety of means to comply with Kyoto. The
European Union, for example, just launched a program in which some
12,000 power plants and factories can buy and sell carbon dioxide
allowances on the way to meeting their carbon-reduction goals by
2012. They can also earn credits against their targets by financing
clean-energy technology in developing countries.

While the US government declines to join the international Kyoto
effort, businesses around the country already are moving in that
direction.

A group of major companies (including DuPont, International
Paper, and IBM), have formed the Chicago Climate Exchange to trade
carbon dioxide emission reductions on a spot market basis. Member
companies have agreed to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 4
percent by 2006.

Another group of major corporations has joined the Pew Center on
Global Climate Change's Business Environmental Leadership Council.
They agree that "enough is known about the science and environmental
impacts of climate change for us to take actions to address its
consequences." Businesses, they say, "can and should take concrete
steps now in the US and abroad to assess opportunities for emission
reductions; establish and meet emission reduction objectives; and
invest in new, more efficient products, practices and technologies."

Members of this high-powered group include Boeing, CH2M Hill,
United Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard. Some CEOs believe strongly
that global warming is a threat that must be addressed; others -
especially those with overseas operations - accept the inevitability
of international controls on carbon emissions, and they don't want
to be caught behind the competition. …

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